Born: 1960 Kovel, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Year of Migration to the UK: 1997
Other name/s: Olga Blazhko
Biography
Painter Olga Brown was born in Kovel, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Ukraine), in 1960. Her family moved to Lviv in 1969, where she later trained in art and textiles at the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (now the Lviv National Academy of Arts), completing her MA in 1982. She subsequently worked as a textile designer for the company Yunist, while exhibiting her paintings and batiks in Ukraine, Poland and Canada, under the name Olga Blazhko. Brown immigrated to London, England in 1997, where she continues to live and work.
Her primary subject, for almost three decades, has remained the streets and skyline of the British capital. Her paintings are impressionistic and richly coloured, her cityscapes embracing the noise and energy of modern urban life. Recurring motifs include London's buses and other everyday means of transport, and her scenes are consistently populated with figures, rather than confined to architectural subjects. She frequently introduces flashes of black into an otherwise warm palette, applying paint in thick, expressive brushstrokes. This handling of colour and pattern owes something to her early training in textile design, a discipline that continues to inform the decorative surfaces of her work.
As Olga Blazhko, she has exhibited widely in her homeland and internationally: at the Lviv National Gallery (1986); in Presentation at the Khmelnytskyi Museum of Art (1994 and 1997); in the International Exhibition of Miniature Art at Dell Bello Gallery, Toronto, Canada (1994, 1995 and 1997), and in an exhibition of Lviv artists, marking the opening of the Lviv Palace of Arts (1996). After moving to England, she exhibited at The Great Art Fair, Alexandra Palace, London (2006), held solo exhibitions at Cat Hill Gallery, London (2007), and Warren House, Kingston, Surrey (2011), and took part in Three Views of London at Gallery SW3 (2009), Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries (2009), Art for Youth (2009 and 2010) and Chase (2010) at the Royal College of Art, the Cork Street Open Exhibition at Cork Street Gallery (2013) and the Affordable Art Fair at The Art Movement Gallery, London (2016). Brown is a member of both the Hesketh Hubbard Art Society and the Chelsea Art Society. With the latter, she exhibited in the exhibition Chelsea, Naturally at 340 King's Road in 2021 and in its 77th Annual Open Exhibition at Chelsea Old Town Hall in 2025. In 2024, one of her London cityscapes, Sloane Square, was reproduced on an Art Below poster displayed at Pimlico Underground station to publicise an exhibition at the Ad Lib Gallery, Wimbledon, as part of the Wandsworth Artists' Open House. She took part in Wandsworth Artists' Open House again in October 2025, with a further Art Below poster of her work displayed at Hyde Park Corner Underground station. In 2025, she also exhibited with the Hesketh Hubbard Art Society in The Contemporary Figure at the XYZ Gallery, London, showing the oil painting Alice and the drawing Nude, the latter praised for offering 'a gentle yet powerful meditation on vulnerability and repose' (Hesketh Hubbard Art Society). In January 2026, her tree paintings The Winter Trees, Spring is Coming and Knobby Oak were shown at the London Art Fair, Islington, on the id.entity.art. stand. Brown has also developed a new strand of figurative work, exploring ideas of escapism, elegance and movement, drawing on influences from both Old Masters and modern photography. These paintings typically present a single female figure rendered with meticulous attention to detail and set against bold black backgrounds, continuing to reflect Brown's early training in textiles through their attention to pattern and surface.
Olga Brown lives and works in London, England. Her work is not currently represented in the UK public domain. Her work is held in an art museum in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, including the textile painting Stranger (1997), and in private collections in the UK, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe.
Michal Mel
Related books
- Aesthetica Magazine, issue 127, October/November 2025, p. 143
- Garden Square News, vol. 30, issue 2, Autumn 2025, p. 20
- 'Українська думка' (Ukrainska dumka), 6 August 2016, p. 10
- South West, issue 32, October 2015, p. 16
- Ideal Home, February 2014, p. 49
- Absolutely Putney and Wandsworth, October 2013, p. 13
- Chris Aldhous, Ghosts of Gone Birds (London: Bloomsbury, 2013)
Public collections
Related organisations
- Chelsea Art Society (member)
- Hesketh Hubbard Art Society (member)
- Ukrainian Cultural Association in the UK (member)
Related web links
- ArtRabbit, XYZ gallery exhibition listing including The Contemporary Figure
- Chelsea Art Society
- Olga Brown, artist's website
- Olga Brown, Artists Open House Wandsworth 2026
- Olga Brown, Artsper profile
- The Ukrainian Cultural Association in the UK: Our Artists
Selected exhibitions
- London Art Fair, id.entity.art Stand, Islington, London (2026)
- The Contemporary Figure, XYZ Gallery, London (2025)
- Wandsworth Artists' Open House, London (2025 2024)
- 77th Annual Open Exhibition, Chelsea Old Town Hall, London (2025)
- Society of Women Artists Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London (2023)
- Chelsea, Naturally, 340 King's Road, London (2021)
- Affordable Art Fair, The Art Movement Gallery, London (2016)
- Cork Street Open Exhibition, Cork Street Gallery, London (2013)
- Solo Exhibition, Warren House, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey (2011)
- Chase, Royal College of Art, London (2010)
- Art for Youth, Royal College of Art, London (2010, 2009)
- Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London (2009)
- Three Views of London, Gallery SW3, London (2009)
- Solo Exhibition, Cat Hill Gallery, London (2007)
- The Great Art Fair, Alexandra Palace, London (2006)
- International Exhibition of Miniature Art, Dell Bello Gallery, Toronto, Canada (1997, 1995, 1994)
- Presentation, Khmelnytskyi Museum of Art, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine (1997, 1994)
- Group Exhibition of Lviv Artists Marking the Opening of the Lviv Palace of Arts, Lviv, Ukraine (1996)
- Group exhibition, Lviv National Gallery, Lviv, Ukraine (1986)
